Word: spartan
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...fatherless family moved to the grimy city of Leeds. Young Read attended a spartan city school whose only romanticism lay in the library's collection of Rider Haggard. At 15, he became a bank clerk (at ?20 a year) and a "true-blue Tory," at 17 a disciple of Alfred Tennyson and William Blake. At 22, he was swept off to World War I-stopping off long enough in London to hand a publisher his first volume of poems...
...point out to [her] that "Spartan Wives" are learning, not at the college level (as she recommends) but on the my-life-my-belly level, about science (is baby really sick enough to need a doctor? We dine on oatmeal for a week if she is), philosophy (some way must be found to cope with trouble and frustration . . .), economics (obviously), and sociology (living in a factory-hand or trailer-camp community is more enlightening than any text...
Your article on Fertile Valley and the ''Spartan Wives" [TIME, April 14] really made me shudder at the intellectual laziness of American women. Is it possible they really find mental stimulation in the type of adult education outlined in your article, or are they seeking merely mental soporifics and time-killers? Might I suggest they add "Flower Arrangements" and "How to Collect Antiques" to their program...
...Spartan Wives" are not unusual. Unfortunately, they are too, too, typical of millions of other American women...
...Wives also conduct a weekly radio program on the college station (sample subject: "How to Live on $90 a Month"), run a library in the recreation hall, sponsor dances, publish the Spartan Wives' News. With their Spartan husbands, they operate a cooperative store that has cut food prices 8 to 10%, saves the wives a mile walk to the nearest grocer or butcher...